6 Weird Things You do When around a Narcissist

Whether it’s a partner or a parent living with or growing up around a narcissist, it changes you in myriad ways. It’s always difficult; you develop coping mechanisms, coping strategies that make you think you are a victim or that there is something deeply wrong with you.

1 You learn to open and close doors quietly.

You learn to close and open doors as quickly as possible to avoid triggering the narcissist. Narcissists keep searching for a reason to abuse you, to put you down, to scold you, to tell you off, to belittle you, to dehumanize you, and blame you for not letting them live their life peacefully. One of the things they blame you for is making noise, so you have to become really cautious, really hyper-vigilant when closing and opening doors. One mistake, one little bit of noise, and there goes the narcissist, throwing a big tantrum, trying to scrutinize you, ask you questions – who did you open that door for? Where have you been? What were you trying to do? And so on. ‘Why can’t you let me be at peace?’ You learn to just become invisible in such a setting where your visibility is abused. The hypocrisy is that they can be banging doors as loudly as they can – it’s okay. They can be talking to other people as loudly as possible in your presence. You are expected to just tolerate it, but they can’t tolerate even the sound that you make when breathing. You don’t make any sound, but to them, it’s still hurtful to their ears. So, you learn to move slowly in your own house where you should be living peacefully with others.